08/20/2023
About a Connecticut case but applies as well to Massachusetts. Kelley Fong, who is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and author of the forthcoming book Investigating Families: Motherhood in the Shadow of Child Protective Services, based on her ethnographic research in Connecticut and Rhode Island, wrote, "Rather than preventing tragedies like Corneliuz’s, rushing to remove children in these cases will inflict needless trauma on children and families. Moreover, parents’ fears that DCF will take their children due to home conditions keep them from reaching out for the help they need before conditions deteriorate." She suggests alternative actions and assistance that is more likely to help than removal.
Following the death of 2-year-old Corneliuz Williams, who fell from a window in his third-floor Hartford apartment building last month, many are rightly asking how this tragedy could have been prev…
